5 ms·

Possibly a sense of betrayal? There was a time when FF seemed like it had a future of being a large player in the browser market. Hanging in single-digit usag

Possibly a sense of betrayal? There was a time when FF seemed like it had a future of being a large player in the browser market. Hanging in single-digit usage seems like that time has come/gone, yet we continue to see loads of things that are... ancillary to that earlier dream of 'being #1' (or just a larger player). Some announcements are 'nice', but almost all seem to point to 'too little too late' for the original dream. I say this as someone who uses chrome/ff/safari daily, and threw a 'Mozilla release party' (with a Mozilla cake!) back when Mozilla hit 1.0, and donated early on to FF/mozilla. They seemingly squandered years becoming less and less relevant to day to day usage, and it bugs some folks. On top of that, we get treated to press releases and social media tidbits now and then of "we're laying off dozens/hundreds of people, and our CEO makes millions of dollars". Depressing to see what it's become vs what people expected years ago...

nyolfen 4y ago
speaking from a distance, mozilla has long struck me as one of these parasitized open source orgs like wikimedia, famous for one piece of software or project but stuffed to the brim with bureaucratic careerists who contribute nothing
- SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
  I dunno, when I started as a junior dev I really appreciated mozillas js guides and other webdev related documentation. They just seemed to have top notch stuff that made me respect the foundation, since they didn’t need to go out of their way to produce such a communally helpful thing. I’m sure to a webdev that already had a ton of experience they might’ve thought it was a waste of their donation money or whatever but I personally got a lot of benefit
  - musicale 4y ago
    The MDN documentation is great actually.
    - solarkraft 4y ago
      1 great thing for 30 terrible ones.
      - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
        I dunno, like I said the docs were helpful to me when I was new, but probably less so to someone who never needed a reference in the first place. I can imagine maybe I just am not the people who benefit strongly for 30 “terrible” things. Like this ocr stuff doesn’t benefit me at all, but you know, I bet it’ll be hugely useful to some people. Idk this position just seems a little narrow minded and negative nancying.
        danielheath 4y ago
        Nup, I still use MDN constantly after 10+ years of regular JS work.
  - notatoad 4y ago
    MDN is still the gold standard for web docs, but my understanding is that Mozilla fired most of the people responsible for it [1] and it's currently run as a joint project with funding from microsoft, google, and various other companies who contribute to it. the list of MDN advisory board members [2] is a good reference for what companies are actually leading MDN these days [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-going-anywhere-as-layoffs-cause-panic-among-developers https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-g... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/MDN_Product_Advisory_Board https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/MDN_Product_Adv...
- matthewmacleod 4y ago
  This is probably a direct result of the toxic polemic that invades every article published about Firefox.
solarkraft 4y ago
You're right, I feel betrayed. Not because the browser is behind (it is), but because Mozilla seems much more interested shilling in random proprietary shit than working on the browser. I know they're in financial trouble. But how they spend what's left doesn't make it look like they're interested in surviving that much, only management salaries. If one of the major chromium skins supported tree style tabs I'd long be gone.
notatoad 4y ago
speaking only for myself personally, this is pretty much it. i'm not intentionally coming into the threads and badmouthing firefox, but i get why people want to - it feels like they've very deliberatly set the perception of their brand as being "the good guys" in comparison to chrome/google, and they haven't really been living up to that. they're essentially just another corporate browser development firm, same as chrome, edge, opera, brave, etc, but they try to project the vibe of being the saviours of the internet. and at one point it seemed like they might be, but now we all understand that they're not. of late, it feels like they've come to the conclusion that their browser can't actually compete on merit, so they're leaning into the reputation of mozilla of old. but they're not the mozilla of old, they're just another company doing corporate things and collecting that fat paycheque from google for search engine placement.
- janfoeh 4y ago
  I would argue that the fact they even have a "brand" has been a fork in the road. It used to be a bunch of people writing a piece of software for whatever damn reason they had, and that was enough to produce something notable and worthwhile. You'll have a hard time convincing me that anything so fundamental has changed that this cannot still be enough. The moment anyone does, I'll leave the net for good, because then all truly is lost.

nyolfen 4y ago

speaking from a distance, mozilla has long struck me as one of these parasitized open source orgs like wikimedia, famous for one piece of software or project but stuffed to the brim with bureaucratic careerists who contribute nothing

SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
I dunno, when I started as a junior dev I really appreciated mozillas js guides and other webdev related documentation. They just seemed to have top notch stuff that made me respect the foundation, since they didn’t need to go out of their way to produce such a communally helpful thing. I’m sure to a webdev that already had a ton of experience they might’ve thought it was a waste of their donation money or whatever but I personally got a lot of benefit
- musicale 4y ago
  The MDN documentation is great actually.
  - solarkraft 4y ago
    1 great thing for 30 terrible ones.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 4y ago
      I dunno, like I said the docs were helpful to me when I was new, but probably less so to someone who never needed a reference in the first place. I can imagine maybe I just am not the people who benefit strongly for 30 “terrible” things. Like this ocr stuff doesn’t benefit me at all, but you know, I bet it’ll be hugely useful to some people. Idk this position just seems a little narrow minded and negative nancying.
      - danielheath 4y ago
        Nup, I still use MDN constantly after 10+ years of regular JS work.
- notatoad 4y ago
  MDN is still the gold standard for web docs, but my understanding is that Mozilla fired most of the people responsible for it [1] and it's currently run as a joint project with funding from microsoft, google, and various other companies who contribute to it. the list of MDN advisory board members [2] is a good reference for what companies are actually leading MDN these days [1] https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-going-anywhere-as-layoffs-cause-panic-among-developers https://www.fastcompany.com/90539632/mozilla-vows-mdn-isnt-g... [2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/MDN_Product_Advisory_Board https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/MDN/MDN_Product_Adv...
matthewmacleod 4y ago
This is probably a direct result of the toxic polemic that invades every article published about Firefox.

solarkraft 4y ago

You're right, I feel betrayed. Not because the browser is behind (it is), but because Mozilla seems much more interested shilling in random proprietary shit than working on the browser. I know they're in financial trouble. But how they spend what's left doesn't make it look like they're interested in surviving that much, only management salaries. If one of the major chromium skins supported tree style tabs I'd long be gone.

notatoad 4y ago

speaking only for myself personally, this is pretty much it. i'm not intentionally coming into the threads and badmouthing firefox, but i get why people want to - it feels like they've very deliberatly set the perception of their brand as being "the good guys" in comparison to chrome/google, and they haven't really been living up to that. they're essentially just another corporate browser development firm, same as chrome, edge, opera, brave, etc, but they try to project the vibe of being the saviours of the internet. and at one point it seemed like they might be, but now we all understand that they're not. of late, it feels like they've come to the conclusion that their browser can't actually compete on merit, so they're leaning into the reputation of mozilla of old. but they're not the mozilla of old, they're just another company doing corporate things and collecting that fat paycheque from google for search engine placement.

janfoeh 4y ago
I would argue that the fact they even have a "brand" has been a fork in the road. It used to be a bunch of people writing a piece of software for whatever damn reason they had, and that was enough to produce something notable and worthwhile. You'll have a hard time convincing me that anything so fundamental has changed that this cannot still be enough. The moment anyone does, I'll leave the net for good, because then all truly is lost.